


sometimes you can't make it on your own

by pan_ismyhomeboy



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Songfic, kinkmeme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-10-04
Updated: 2009-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:13:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pan_ismyhomeboy/pseuds/pan_ismyhomeboy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Originally a 2009 fill to the LJ Star Trek kinkmeme which requested Kirk/Bones songfic to a U2 song. Kirk and Bones are stubborn jackasses but eventually they make it work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sometimes you can't make it on your own

**Tough, you think you've got the stuff  
** You're telling me and anyone  
You're hard enough 

 

The trouble with putting on a persona is that, eventually, one day, you’re either found out or you can’t take off the mask or both, and that really is all she wrote. That’s why Leonard worries, in the back of his mind, about all the shit the kid’s getting himself into this week. Not that Jim isn’t old enough to make his own decisions and learn from them, but from experience he knows that all it takes is one false step, one tiny, insignificant crack in his façade before _someone_ notices. Someone notices, you lose your footing, and before you know it… the whole damn planet’s gone.

So that’s why even though Jim acts like an idiot without an off switch, swaggering and posturing and smiling that infuriating smile, Leonard just sits back and watches. He knows the dance, even if the steps are a little different this time around, and Jim tries to act his way through his entire life while Leonard was just trying, desperately, to act his way through a marriage. (Though, he muses over a shot of bourbon, it came down to the same thing in the end.) So, Mr. Kirk, don’t think for a moment your disguise is nearly so foolproof as you’d like to think.

Leonard knows a kindred spirit when he sees one.

 

**You don't have to put up a fight  
** You don't have to always be right  
Let me take some of the punches  
For you tonight 

 

Saying Leonard McCoy has a bit of a bubble when it comes to interpersonal relationships is like saying he’s also a little bit on the side of Dixie or that Jim Kirk enjoys the odd alien woman or two dozen. It’s more like his bubble is actually a highly sophisticated nuclear warhead system, complete with flashing lights, pointy spikes, and an alligator-infested moat tossed in for good measure. Jim finds out soon enough that people who are able to finagle (or, in Jim’s case, bulldoze) their way inside the Bones Bubble are privy to everything the man thinks. _Everything_. Leonard isn’t the most private man to begin with, wearing his heart on his sleeve and wielding that fact as a weapon, not a weakness. To the few individuals who make it past his defenses, Leonard becomes even more of an open book. More of an audio book, really. An audio autobiography, as narrated by the author.

That’s why when Leonard starts hiding things from him, Jim just has to go poking his nose in his friend’s business.

It starts when he skips class for the third time that week and comes back to his room to find current best-buddy-Bones sprawled out in a chair, nursing an entire bottle of _something_ and reeking to high heaven of alcohol.

“Bones? What the _hell_?”

The way Leonard looks at him sends an entire hypospray worth of ice through his veins. Like it’d be a struggled to drag himself out of the dark place he finds himself in, even if he weren’t shiftfaced at two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon.

“Thought y’were in class, kid,” he slurs, Georgia accent blossoming under all the booze.

“Thought you hated everything but bourbon,” Jim replies shakily, sitting on the edge of his bunk across from roommate.

“Ran out. Had t’grab some from your stash. Sorry.”

“So you grabbed the cheapest shit you could find? Bones, that’s _nasty_.”

He shrugs, taking a long drink. Jim watches him silently, letting his friend finish before reaching out and gently prying his fingers from the bottle. “Let’s get you into bed, okay?”

“I can walk m’self,” Leonard insists, even though Jim has to all but carry him to his own bunk. Jim is warm and strong, and even though Leonard protests he lays beside him anyway.

“You’re sleeping this off even if I have to watch you myself. What happened?”

Leonard is quiet for so long that Jim almost thinks he’s already fallen asleep. When he does speak it’s a soft growl that goes straight to his heart, even if the words are sharp.

“Nothin’ you’d be able t’understand, kid. Now get th’hell outta my bed.”

Jim waits patiently until his friend’s breathing deepens and evens out before standing to pull a blanket over him. A letter on the table catches his eyes; with a look towards Leonard to make sure he really is asleep, he starts to skim through it. It’s addressed to a Mr. Leonard Horatio McCoy, and Jim just has to grin.

He gets to the phrase _visitation rights denied_ , and the smile slips off his face.

 

**Listen to me now  
** I need to let you know  
You don't have to go it alone 

 

It doesn’t surprise Leonard that Jim still gets into bar fights every couple of weeks, but it surprises the hell out of Jim that his roommate knows enough about hand-to-hand combat to drop a guy twice his size. It started innocently enough – well, as innocent as is universally possible to be when James Kirk is involved with _anything_ – with the two making their regular circuit at the local bars. Leonard settles into his second shot of whiskey and watches Jim make an absolute fool of himself with a hot blonde girl he has absolutely no chance in hell with. It’s a pretty boring night until hot blonde girl’s brother shows up and introduces himself with a fist to Jim’s face. Jim’s knocked flat on his ass and is only vaguely aware of a Leonard-shaped blur hurtling over from the bar and tackle hot blonde girl’s brother to the floor.

The ensuing brawl is nothing short of epic. The bartender, who’s bigger than the three of them put together, lets them go for a couple minutes (just so other patrons can start taking bets) before tossing all three of them out onto the pavement. Both of Jim’s eyes are swelling shut and Leonard thinks his nose might be broken, but hot blonde girl’s brother is knocked out cold. They stare at him, then stare at each other, and immediately burst into out-of-control, adrenalin-fueled laughter.

“That was fucking _amazing_ ,” Jim says, holding onto Leonard’s arm. “I didn’t know you could do anything but sit there and look like someone pissed in your cornflakes. Where’d you learn to _fight_ like that?”

Leonard starts checking the both of them for any breaks, but he’s grinning like an idiot too. “Southern blood. Plus playing on the football team all during high school might’ve helped.”

“You did a flying tackle! And he – look at him, he looks like a _gorilla_!”

“So did the guys on the other team.”

Jim, hyped up on pain and endorphins, thinks this the most hilarious thing ever and just breaks down in a giggling fit.

“C’mon,” Leonard says, tugging him up. “Let’s get back home before you get us in any more trouble.”

“Hey, what am I worried about?” he asks, clapping Leonard on the shoulder. “I’ve got my Bones to watch my back.”

 

**And it's you when I look in the mirror  
** And it's you when I don't pick up the phone  
Sometimes you can't make it on your own 

 

Leonard justifies it to himself in a million ways. First off, it just wouldn’t work between them. He’s too grumpy and old, and Jim’s too friendly with the rest of the Academy, and they’re both too broken, even if it is in different ways. They’re roommates, they’re friends, they’re piss drunk and have been for hours, talking and laughing on Jim’s bed and eventually curling up together under the blanket. They’re both looking for comfort and being selfish about it and he knows how this is gonna turn out, he just does. That’s why he pushes Jim away when he tries to kiss him again, even though it’s the first time he’s been touched like that in years and Jim’s beautiful smile just crumples. He mumbles an apology and turns over onto his side, taking most of the blanket with him. Before he sinks into sleep, he’s not sure if it’s his imagination or if he really does hear Jim crying by his side.

 

**We fight all the time  
** You and I, that's alright  
We're the same soul  
I don't need, I don't need to hear you say  
That if we weren't so alike  
You'd like me a whole lot more 

 

He argues that it’s their differences that would make them incompatible, but Jim tells him it’s the similarities that piss him off. The problem is, they’re both proud, stupid sons-of-bitches who won’t back down for anything. They fought all through Academy, and the only difference now is they have to do it behind closed doors so the rest of the crew won’t get alarmed because they don’t _get_ how he and Leonard work. Their friendship is a struggle, and even when they’re not arguing over whether it could ever be something more, that’s what it all comes down to.

One day, Jim tells him that helping smuggling him on board the Enterprise was a damn funny way to say ‘I love you,’ and Leonard slaps him, hard. Jim doesn’t talk to him for a week.

 

**Listen to me now  
** I need to let you know  
You don't have to go it alone 

 

It’s another one of those nights, when everything that can go wrong does go wrong, and before he even knows what happened he has a dead patient on the table. An hour later he’s getting smashed, wondering if he’s got a problem and then deciding he really doesn’t give a fuck. The door to his room slides open for the only other person on the ship who knows his access code.

“So not in the mood, kid,” he mutters, swiveling his chair away so he can face the wall. When Jim announces he’s brought alcohol with him, Leonard turns slightly and motions for him to come in.

“If you’re not on your best behavior I’m kickin’ you out,” he mutters as Jim sets a very sketchy looking bottle down on his desk. “And what the hell is that?”

“The latest batch from Scotty’s still. I hear it’s mostly alcohol this time around.”

“Jim, that shit’s _corrosive_.”

Jim gives half of a very wry grin. “Also heard you don’t much care about quality when you’re trying to drink yourself stupid.”

Leonard’s got too much in his system to keep the flash of guilt off his face. Jim reaches over and swivels the chair to face him, expression set and serious in a way Leonard’s never seen before.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Get the fuck out of my room.”

“You did everything you could.”

He reaches out to touch his arm and Leonard flinches, lips lifting in a snarl. “You really think now’s the best time to be putting the moves on me?”

Jim looks like he just got slapped again. “It’s not about me, I swear.”

Leonard scoffs and takes another pull from the bottle. “That’ll be the blessed day.” He knows he’s being unfair and cruel but he doesn’t _care_. Besides, maybe this’ll finally convince the kid he’s the last person in the verse anyone wants to get shacked up with. Jim’s face becomes blank, distanced, something he probably picked it up from Spock – and _why_ does that send a shock of jealousy straight through his spine?

“I never doubted for a second you’ve got my back. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I had yours.”

After Jim leaves, Leonard rubs his face for a long while and wonders if another drink would be the best or worst idea he’s ever come up with. He looks over at the other bottle and blinks, frowning, reaching out to examine the label – not Scotty’s, then, like Jim had said – and he groans. One brand of especially cheap, nasty liquor, that Jim wouldn’t let him finish back at the Academy.

It’s gone before he can convince himself otherwise.

 

**And it's you when I look in the mirror  
** And it's you when I don't pick up the phone  
Sometimes you can't make it on your own 

 

The incredibly shitty day turns into an incredibly shitty week, and Leonard wonders how the hell he’s supposed to keep up with all this work while the current mission keeps going south. It’s _supposed_ to be a diplomatic mission – diplomacy his pretty ass – so why people get sent to him with laser burns and broken bones is beyond him. He calls the bridge, and except for a few brief and infuriatingly unhelpful words from Spock, learns nothing except A) things are going to hell in a handbasket planetside, and B) Jim is currently on said planet, captaining said handbasket. Leonard tries Jim’s personal communicator three times that day and gets nothing but static.

When Chapel and some of the other nurses try to reassure him, he gruffly orders them back to work. They’ve got crew to save.

 

**I know that we don't talk  
** I'm sick of it all  
Can you hear me when I sing,  
You're the reason I sing  
You're the reason why the opera is in me 

 

It’s been another week since Jim got back to the ship okay – a couple minor scrapes and bruises, nothing to worry about – and he hasn’t been down to harass Leonard in the medbay at all. He hasn’t been anywhere but the bridge and his room, if he can believe current gossip. He orders the Captain in for another physical under the pretenses of checking up on how his body’s healing. When he still doesn’t hear from Jim in another three days, he heads to his room and snarls, “I don’t care what the fuck happened down there, quit mopin’ and blamin’ yourself and get your ass down to medical so I can make sure you’re not fallin’ apart!”

Jim looks up at him strangely from his bunk. “Good to see you too, Bones.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit! Get your ass up right now or so help me God I’ll drag it down there myself!”

He continues to bully Jim the entire way back to the medbay, scaring the nurses and causing a general ruckus. Besides answering medical questions, Jim only says two things the entire physical.

“Are you gonna hypospray me?”

“Only if you make me more pissed off than I already am. What the hell were you thinkin’, disappearin’ on me like that?”

And:

“Gee Bones, I never knew you cared so much.”

Something about the tone of Jim’s voice makes him pause and look up into a face that, for the moment, can’t find the energy to summon up his façade. It’s painfully sincere and tired and _honest_ , because – and Leonard realizes this with a start – Jim trusts him. Not just a little, and not just with his life, but with his heart and more than he’s probably ever trusted anyone else in his entire life, himself included.

“Well I do,” he says gruffly, trying to hide behind his tricorder, but Jim pushes it aside and kisses him.

“Well kiss him _back_!” Chapel laughs, and even though he makes a mental note to put her on manual bedpan duty, he kisses Jim back anyway.

 

**Where are we now?  
** I've got to let you know  
A house still doesn't make a home  
Don't leave me here alone 

 

Leonard never finds out from Jim what happened down on the planet; he has plenty of opportunities to read over the official report, of course, but he loses all the hardcopies and just signs what he needs to (tallies of the dead and injured, mostly, and because he reads every bit of information on those lists it takes awhile to get through). If he needs to wait his entire life for Jim to finally tell him, he will, but he’s not going to push it. Jim is strong on the bridge, putting on his act once again and convincing everyone (so he thinks) that their captain is just fine. Off duty, however, he has nightmares and quiet breakdowns and a CMO who, for the present, has taken up residence in his room.

Leonard wonders when was the last time Jim let himself cry like this. He wonders if he’s ever been held, had someone kiss away the tears, tell him in all certainty that it would be okay. That _he_ would be okay.

“I couldn’t save them,” he says into Leonard’s shoulder, clinging to his arms. “I couldn’t and I tried _so hard_.”

“You did everything you could, kid,” he murmurs, stroking his back. “It’s not your fault. Never was your fault. Nothin’ ever was.”

He rocks him to sleep that night and every night after, until piece by piece he helps Jim put himself back together.

 

**And it's you when I look in the mirror  
** And it's you that makes it hard to let go  
Sometimes you can't make it on your own  
Sometimes you can't make it  
The best you can do is to fake it  
Sometimes you can't make it on your own 

 

Gossip is unusually silent on the matter of Jim and Leonard apparently sharing rooms now, even when Scotty and Sulu spot an almost naked Jim wandering out of Leonard’s room with a yawn. Uhura gives quiet congratulations, Spock merely raises an eyebrow, and Chapel keeps giving him infuriating and smug I-told-you-so grins; business as usual, for which Leonard is eternally grateful. Jim copes and learns how to build his persona again until one day he wakes Leonard with a kiss and announces, “I’m better.” Leonard grins, cups his face and announces bullshit, he wants some proof.

Both of them are late for their post, but no one in the entire crew even bats an eye.  



End file.
